1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method for testing the filling of a container and a filling test device for containers of the tobacco-processing industry.
2. Discussion of Background Information
The handling of rod-shaped objects or articles in the tobacco-processing industry is often implemented with containers or trays. The rising increase in the production speed of cigarette and filter manufacturing machines is less and less consistent with manual handling of the trays filled with product rods. As a rule, a tray is filled with approx. 4,000 product rods. With product speeds of, e.g., 16,000 produced cigarettes per minute, this can mean up to four tray exchanges per minute and thus a movement of respectively up to four full and four empty trays at one production machine. An operator thus would have only 7.5 seconds to perform the tray transport of full and empty trays.
It can happen that full or empty trays exhibit filling or emptying errors which, in the case of manual handling, an operator would be able to recognize and correct. The failure to correct these errors would consequently lead to process defects, which can result in a production stoppage, e.g., of a cigarette-making machine.
An efficient method and an efficient device for the successive emptying of containers are known from DE 199 45 808 A1.